Hot rodders and the military have both been using water/alcohol injection for decades. Water adds thermal efficiency, and helps cool the intake air, while alcohol raises the octane level, and also helps cool the intake. My suggestion is to use cheap 3% hydrogen peroxide (97% water), and mix it with cheap 91% isopropyl alcohol, and spray it as a fine mist into the intake. As the oxygen came out of the peroxide, it would help burn the alcohol, resulting in higher horsepower. Detonation wouldn't be a problem, because the water and alcohol have a strong anti-detonation effect. The basic idea is cheap performance. You could make your own nozzle easily, and a windshield washer pump would suffice to provide pressure.
DK-- Darknight, Jul 08 2003 Don't want to think what might happen if something went wrong...-- suctionpad, Jul 08 2003 Perhaps I missed something, but what is the point of hydrogen peroxide instead of just water?-- Worldgineer, Jul 08 2003 The reason for hydrogen peroxide is this: alcohol both directly and indirectly raises the engine's ability to utilize oxygen(and increases the octane rating), by suppressing the tendency to "knock," or detonate. Because hydrogen peroxide releases oxygen when compressed and/or heated, it makes a good delivery system to get more oxygen into the cylinders. Simply put, higher octane + more oxygen + knock suppression = advanced ignition timing + more power & efficiency.
DK-- Darknight, Jul 08 2003 Hydrogen peroxide or H2O2 in vapor form has about half the oxygen of atmospheric O2. So that means peroxide has 2.5 times the oxygen molecule for molecule as air does (20% oxygen). So its just like injecting liquid air. Never thought of using it in drag racing.....!
Compared to NOS, energy is needed to break the N-O bond. Degrading H2O2 actually releases some energy of its own - it's a very unstable molecule. This is *usually* non-explosive and very controlled. So much energy is release you can have H202 rocket motors using more than 40% concentration peroxide. Unfotunately the presence of alcohol may cause the H2O2 to degrade prematurely - probably not, but not sure.-- venomx, Jul 10 2003 I'm thinking lithium hydroxide would be safer for a car without a proper high performance engine. This will prevent the engine from exploding.-- 0_owaffleo_0, Jul 10 2003 T-stoff, yah!-- lurch, Jul 11 2003 I've thought abotu this many of times using H2O2 and Alcohol. IIRC, Alcohol can "dehydrate" the water from mix. You might want to make a mix of Isoprophal and Ethonal as your main alcohol mix. Then do a 50/50 by volume mix with the 3%-5% (3% is common) H2O2. It would act as a great oxidizer. Better oxidation of the fuel should be able to make the burn process a bit more complete. By that I mean, that the end product would be more broken down. This also might be able to make the fuel burn longer which would mean that the MPG should go up if the engine's diagnostic systems can tune it self to this. A big problem would be finding the ratio of this additive to the petro based fuel.
As it was said before - H202 is not very stable and might be broken down quite easily in the mix. This could lead to negative results by way of demenishing the effiency of the engine, over heating the engine block and warping your cylinders. Or the very worse, end up become a moving hydrogen bomb....
-Ellis-- ellis, Jan 09 2004 I confess I didn't read this idea or any of the annotations, I just wanted to know what it would be like to write a fairly lengthy annotation and then sign off with my user name. I've never done it before, and I just wonder if it feels good or right or what.
-k_sra-- k_sra, Jan 09 2004 One day an idea like this will lure me into dumping random stuff into my unsuspecting car’s gasoline tank, just for kicks.
-Laughs Last-- Laughs Last, Jan 09 2004 By increaseing the oxygen density you also increase the heat. Plus you're also throwing hydrogen into the mix which makes things even hotter. Refer to an acetylene torch. How do you propose to deal with the extra heat without heat checking the cylinder walls or melting aluminum pistons. Plus adding water increases combustion pressures which on older engines could blow out the head gasket. If I had a new car I don't think there would be a problem but I wouldn't want to try this a an old junker that can't take the heat or increased pressures. If somone does try this I'd like to know how long before they burn a valve?-- jotter, Jan 11 2004 Cool! acetylene internal combustion!-- cloudface, Jan 11 2004 not cool you melt the engines-- jotter, Jan 15 2004 Isn't hydrogen peroxide the stuff that hair-dressers use? Brings a new meaning to "hairdresser's car".-- Ling, Jan 17 2004 H202 is used for a number of things from bleaching hair, cleaning cuts, to making rockets.
As for heat, there would be a number of ways to deal with this. If you were to cut the amount of fueling flowing to the engine, then you would reduce the amount of fuel being burnt. The reduction of fuel being burnt should help keep the engine cooler.-- ellis, May 08 2004 Ling, what's the first meaning?-- swamilad, May 09 2004 English slang: hairdresser's car - basically a shit car dressed up. See link. Since hairdressers use hydrogen peroxide.... Oh well, never mind.-- Ling, May 12 2004 Hydrogen Peroxide is a classic rocket fuel. I'm all for putting rocket fuel in my car. The alcohol is okay too, but it's the H2O2 that really bakes this bun.-- 5th Earth, May 12 2004 I once sold this very product then started mixing my own. It does work! 1/2 bottle of Denatured Alcohol, 1 bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide, 1/2 can of 104+ Octane booster (which is probably mostly what you're putting in there with the other ingredients anyways). The bottle would have a tube from the top injecting air into the bottom of the bottle and there would be a vacuum hose with a limiter (about .020" hole) inside the manifold vacuum tube. It takes about 2-3 tanks full to reach it's fullest potential because the peroxide cleans the combustion chamber. I had a Jeep with NO emission controls on it at all and headers with no catalytic converter and it beat California Emissions! The bottle would last about 7000 miles and suddenly you notice a significant power loss (runs like it used to) and sure enough... it was out and time to refill. Gas mileage increased from 15-47% depending on the vehicle and the power by 10-20%.-- nrgisr, May 28 2004 With 1/2 bottle of Alcohol and 1 of 3% H2O2, it appears that the volume of active ingredients delivered over 7000 mi would be many orders of magnitude below the gasoline use. Wouldn't this indicate that any real effects are due to the H2O alone?-- raytork, Aug 23 2004 //One day an idea like this will lure me into dumping random stuff into my unsuspecting car’s gasoline tank, just for kicks//(Remembers highly suspect advice from disreputable guy) I have heard that an occasional tank of diesel will clean out a petrol engine... I think the dude was covering up for a dumb mistake though. :D-- stilgar, Nov 24 2004 Yeah, I just smiled and nodded. The problem was that with the bloke being a boy racer (of the low budget Nova variety) it would have been difficult to tell if the breakdown was the diesel's fault or if something else went wrong inside the few hundred metres.-- stilgar, Nov 25 2004 Petrol-engined cars won't burn diesel, as far as I know, as they can't generate the high temperatures and pressures needed for autoignition. You'd have to totally clean out the entire fuel system.
A car designed for leaded petrol can be run occasionally on unleaded, though.-- david_scothern, Nov 25 2004 You don't fill the tank with diesel, you DRIBBLE into the intake manifold while the car is running. It's a really old way of burning carbon off your heads. Old VW Bug guys still do this. You just make sure to pour slowly enough not to kill the engine, and it smokes like hell, but it'll clean everything out.-- Novysan, Oct 07 2005 Although 3% is a small amount, I do know that H2O2 attacks iron. So just beware that unless you have an all aluminum engine there might be a problem. But mabey not if it degrades before it gets a chance to eat the iron. Im actually going to try this versus pure water injection in my corolla. Ill let y'all know how it works out.-- eldoradodrew, Oct 14 2005 //Isn't hydrogen peroxide the stuff that hair-dressers use? Brings a new meaning to "hairdresser's car". // In the 1970's there was to be an attempt on the British landspeed record in a peroxide-powered car called Blonde Bombshell. I think it was to use a surplus engine from a Blue Steel-- coprocephalous, May 12 2006 random, halfbakery